{"id":6052,"date":"2016-05-31T19:52:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T19:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=6052"},"modified":"2025-04-11T10:44:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T10:44:29","slug":"who-are-the-stakeholders-and-what-is-their-importance-in-itil-based-it-service-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2016\/05\/31\/who-are-the-stakeholders-and-what-is-their-importance-in-itil-based-it-service-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the stakeholders and what is their importance in ITIL-based IT Service Management?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quite often I notice, during discussions about <a href=\"\/20000academy\/what-is-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ITIL<\/a>-based IT Service Management (ITSM), the mention of stakeholders. Although some people use it as a buzzword, those who know what it means \u2013 they know it\u2019s quite an important word.<\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders exist in any element of a company\u2019s business and in any kind of organization. They also exist in our everyday life. So, in this article, I\u2019ll clarify who the stakeholders are, how to approach them, and why (and how) they are used in ITSM organization.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Who are the stakeholders?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>According to the ITIL definition, a stakeholder is\u00a0 \u201ca person who has an interest in an organization, project, IT service etc.\u201d Let me explain with a non-IT example. Consider a company \u2013 who would be stakeholders in it? Employees, managers, board of management, shareholders, syndicates, customers, suppliers, vendors, etc. But, also, e.g., the community where this organization does business. That includes universities that are interested in making sure that their students have a place to work once they are done with university. Everyone living in the city where the company is located could also be stakeholders. For example, if the company has production facilities, everyone in the city is interested in whether the production considers the highest environmental standards (e.g., <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/14001academy\/what-is-iso-14001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 14001<\/a>). So, those would be stakeholders in a company.<br \/>\n<div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><\/p>\n<h2><strong>How about IT services and ITSM?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>IT services (and, consequently, ITSM) deal with stakeholders in almost every process and throughout the ITSM organization. Stakeholders of an IT service are employees of the ITSM organization and the organization\u2019s management, other employees of the company, management of the company, users and customers, vendors, suppliers, regulators, partners, etc. They all have interest in IT services.<\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders can be divided into two categories:<\/p>\n<p>Internal \u2013 these are teams, groups, and employees who work in the same organization. In case of internal IT providers, this also means internal customers.<\/p>\n<p>External \u2013 these are all parties who are not part of the same organization: typically, external customers or suppliers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6055 size-full\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/6\/2016\/05\/Internal_and_external_stakeholders_img.png\" alt=\"Internal_and_external_stakeholders_img\" width=\"303\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/05\/Internal_and_external_stakeholders_img.png 303w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/05\/Internal_and_external_stakeholders_img-300x178.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 303px) 100vw, 303px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><em>Figure: Internal and external stakeholders<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why are they important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Simply put, they are important because stakeholders of the IT services and ITSM organization include everyone you need to deliver the services (e.g., users) or to be founded (e.g., customers). So, you can\u2019t live without them. But, let me elaborate on this in more details.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to understand who the stakeholders of the IT services are, how they are using the services, and what their interests are. If you recall the IT service lifecycle \u2013 that\u2019s set in the scope of Service Strategy (read the article\u00a0<a href=\"\/20000academy\/knowledgebase\/itil-service-strategy-itsm\/\">ITIL Service Strategy: What and Why of ITSM<\/a>\u00a0to learn more). By being clear as to who the stakeholders of your IT services are, you are able to define supporting organization (roles, responsibilities, teams\u2026 etc.), processes, how to manage interfaces between processes and different roles, etc. So, in different stages of the IT service lifecycle you will have to consider different aspects of the stakeholder requirements (e.g., by understanding your stakeholders\u2019 demand towards the service(s), you will be able to respond with appropriate capacity).<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s see a few examples where stakeholders\u2019 involvement is important:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Defining the service \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"\/iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Service Portfolio Management<\/a>\u00a0has to take care that stakeholders are involved in the definition and evaluation of the service. I had witnessed a project where the service was defined and implemented by IT without the involvement of business and marketing (i.e., the right stakeholders) and it never succeeded. Read the article <a href=\"\/20000academy\/blog\/2014\/06\/24\/itil-service-portfolio-management-process-overview\/\">ITIL Service Portfolio Management Process Overview<\/a>\u00a0to learn more.<\/li>\n<li>Deploying the service \u2013 stakeholders should be informed about the progress of the service implementation throughout the project. In such way, stakeholders will feel involved in setting up the service, but also it will be much easier to involve them in any necessary steps like, e.g., testing. If stakeholders involve external parties like the customers of a supplier, then Service Level Manager\/Business Relationship Manager and Supplier Manager\u00a0will be involved.<\/li>\n<li>Service operation and monitoring \u2013 operation activities directly affect stakeholders\u2019 (in this case \u2013 users\u2019 and customers\u2019) satisfaction. Therefore, it\u2019s important to understand stakeholders\u2019 interests and how they use the services in order to optimize outputs (services delivered). Monitoring provides direct information to the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=relationship-and-agreement-processes&#038;doc=service-level-agreement-sla-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Service Level Management<\/a>, ITSM, and customer (all are stakeholders of a particular service) about the quality of the provided service and support teams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>And ISO 20000?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 20000<\/a>\u00a0does not use the word stakeholder, but \u2013 interested party. By definition, an interested party is a \u201cperson or group having a specific interest in the performance or success of the service provider&#8217;s activity or activities.\u201d From the importance and involvement in the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=sms-related-documents&amp;doc=service-management-system-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Service Management System (SMS)<\/a>\u00a0processes and related activities, interested party corresponds to stakeholder. So, everything mentioned above (i.e., ITIL related) is valid for ISO 20000. Read the article <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2016\/02\/09\/5-key-benefits-of-iso-20000-implementation\/\">5 key benefits of ISO 20000 implementation<\/a>\u00a0about ISO 20000 implementation.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Two-way road<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As you could see, stakeholders are interested in the activities, targets, resources, or deliverables. Their involvement is not unidirectional, but rather bidirectional. The ITSM organization has clear interests to excel throughout the IT service lifecycle. Maybe indirectly, but that\u2019s also the customer\u2019s interest because they need services to be delivered at the highest quality. That\u2019s why stakeholders, their interests, and their involvement are extremely important.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, analyze who the stakeholders of your services are, communicate with them, and let them say what they think \u2013 in the service definition phase as well as (even more important) once the service is in the live environment. In such way, they will feel involved and respected. If you were the customer \u2013 would you like something more?<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quite often I notice, during discussions about ITIL-based IT Service Management (ITSM), the mention of stakeholders. Although some people use it as a buzzword, those who know what it means \u2013 they know it\u2019s quite an important word. Stakeholders exist in any element of a company\u2019s business and in any kind of organization. They also &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[533,366,344,204,532],"class_list":["post-6052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-customers","tag-iso-20000","tag-itil","tag-service","tag-stakeholders"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18240,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions\/18240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}